]]>Before the collaboration between Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio, there was Scorsese and Robert De Niro. Amongst critics Taxi Driver has been described as the director’s best work to date; an American perspective of urban degradation and isolation.

Vietnam veteran Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) is a loner on the mean streets of New York City, slipping slowly into an isolated and disturbed state. He takes a job as a yellow cab driver on the night shift to cope with his insomnia but grows increasingly disgusted by the low-lifes that hang out at night. Though he tries desperately, he can’t seem to make up for this mistake and continues on with his self-destructive behaviour.

Taxi Driver is about loneliness

The overwhelming theme running concurrent throughout the film is loneliness. It’s not about mindless violence or sexual exploitation but rather a look into the world of someone who is forced into a seedy world because of his state of mind. Bickle is a deeply disturbed individual, whose obsessions lead him to do the unconventional. His thoughts manifest themselves to the point of pushing him over the edge and he puts those thoughts into action.

Looking back now it seems there is no one who would have been better enabled to capture Bickle’s unstable persona than Robert De Niro. Made famous by the “You talkin’ to me?” line, Bickle is someone who can’t put the Vietnam war out of his mind. He may be back in the USA but the war has broken his spirit and turned him into a violent and unpredictable individual.

Robert De Niro Gives a Career Defining Performance

It’s the lonely life he leads that causes him to turn into him and let his disturbing thoughts take over. De Niro gives a lesson in less is more, performing with a minimalist approach. It’s a defining moment in his career and has to be seen to fully appreciate how he has grown as an actor.

Jodie Foster is a revelation as the child prostitute who catches Bickle’s attention, leading him to believe he can save her from her situation. Despite her age (Foster was 12 when she played this role) Foster is great as Iris. She has an air of maturity about her and yet easily shows her childish side by smothering sugar over a piece of toast.

As is the case with all of his film, Scorsese doesn’t just let the actors carry the story. It’s the camerawork he shoots and the way he directs the performers that makes this a superbly produced film.

Focusing less on violence and more on the psychologically disturbed nature of Bickle, having De Niro ad-lib a scene in-front of a mirror is one the highlights of the film and shows the strong relationship between actor and director. Similarly, Scorsese’s willingness to let the camera drift from the main character in some scenes shows how in-tune he is with his audience.

He quickly gathers his awestruck, schlubby neighbor (a very well cast Jonah Hill) and fellow slimy pals and launches a firm.

At the height of his success in the ‘90s, Jordan pulls in $49 million a year and accessorizes his Armani suits with a private plane, mansions and a yacht.

He ditches the missus for a naughty, greedy trophy wife, who he nicknames “the duchess” (Margot Robbie).

This gold-plated excess is splashed around the screen with unabashed glee.

Crime pays, everybody!

The message is intoxicating. Don’t bother ruminating on the fine details behind the swindling, either.

As Jordan brazenly admits in one of his many asides to the camera, “All you care about is whether we made a sh–load of money!” (The account is based on his real-life memoir, by the way).

Yet even the most prying eyes might glaze over by the sheer repetitiveness of all this NC-17-rated behavior.

The first time Jordan spazzes out on his beloved Quaaludes (and does a play-by-play via voiceover!) is dizzying. The second time is amusing.

The fourth time is. . . . unnecessary. Still, it can never be said that DiCaprio doesn’t throw himself into his roles.

Here, the actor gets to hilariously flex his rarely used physical-comedy muscles when he slithers down a driveway and collapses into his convertible.

He’s also deliciously charming while wooing a no-nonsense FBI agent (Kyle Chandler) hot on his tail.

The 24/7 raunchiness comes at the expense of a fleshed-out plot.

Crucial questions are glossed over, such as Jordan’s newfound commitment to sobriety and how he gets out of a slippery showdown with Chandler.

Jordan’s dad (Rob Reiner) is underdeveloped, while his point person with the SEC (Jon Favreau) disappears.

This is not a suggestion to cut the image of Jordan pouring hot wax on a babe’s back. But must his butler throw a wild party too?

More problematic, none of these sleaze-balls is the least bit remorseful.

Jordan never acknowledges his victims or, for that matter, cares about anyone but himself. (The reckless way he treats his young daughter toward the end of the film is especially chilling). He merely wants to sell his lies and his lifestyle.

And just when it seems like Jordan might get his comeuppance, he’s allowed to play tennis in his country club of a prison.

There is loads of physically challenging stuff in the film about real-life Wall Street sociopath, Jordan Belfort, played by DiCaprio.

In one scene a hooker uses his derriere as a candleholder. In another sequence, he massively overdoses on Quaaludes and loses his motor control, crawls and falls down steps.

“The cane is because I sprained my ankle on the floorboard,” DiCaprio said. “Nothing as exciting as maybe you thought it would be.”

Then someone asked Scorsese about rumors that he was going to retire?

“You’ll have to tackle me to stop me,” the 71 year-old director cracked.

DiCaprio said the over-the-top scenes in the film depict a “modern-day Caligula,” and are lifted from Belfort’s biography, which DiCaprio picked up six years ago. “I was compelled to play his character” in a movie version, and “obsessed with having Marty direct.” Financing fell apart and then Scorsese did “Hugo.”

Rob Reiner, who’s known as a director nowadays more than as an actor, said he didn’t know why he was approached to play Jordan Belfort’s excitable dad.

“When Martin Scorsese calls to ask you to be in a movie, you just do it. You don’t ask questions.”

But then, “First of all, I thought, ‘Well he wants me to play Leonardo DiCaprio’s father, so I thought, ‘Well maybe I’m more handsome than I thought.”

“Plus I got to say the F-word in a Martin Scorsese film. That’s always a good thing.”

A journalist said a friend of his counted “500 f’s” in the “The Wolf of Wall Street.”

Scorsese asked, “Did that beat ‘The Departed’ or no?”

The journalist said he thought it might have.

That’s a good bet because “The Wolf of Wall Street” clocks in at 169 minutes while “The Departed” is only 151.

Someone asked if the film was a comment on the impact of bankers on Hollywood, that they call the shots instead of studio heads.

“I don’t really know who’s calling the shots anymore, seriously,” Scorsese said. “All I know is that the cinema we know, the cinema we took seriously when I was growing up, when I was making films earlier, it’s all changed now. Everything’s about where the money is.”

“I don’t know where the money comes from either, maybe Russian oligarchs.” Reiner said, adding it was rare to get a movie made that didn’t have “man in the title or a number, you know, ‘Ironman 2,’ ‘Superman 3,’ ‘Batman 4.’”

“Or ‘the Beginning,’” Scorsese laughed.

Some critics will say Belfort comes off too much of a celebrity. Did Caprio have empathy or sympathy for him?

He said Belfort was “beneficial” to him as an actor. “He looks at this as an isolated period in his life. He’s been paying the price ever since. He’s been doing everything he can to repay his debt to everybody that he’s ripped off.”

Sometimes after he divulged some embarrassing things about himself he’d tell DiCaprio, “Well maybe we shouldn’t portray this.” DiCaprio would remind him everything was in the book and this was a chance to talk about the dangers of an unregulated Wall Street. “As soon as we had that conversation, he’s like, ‘All right, I’m an open book. I’m going to tell you not only what happened on that day, but I’m gonna tell you something ten times worse.’”

DiCaprio’s vision for the film was that it was “to be this hallucinogenic sort of ride,” and that the sequence in which Jordan and his friend, Donnie (Jonah Hill) overdose on Quaaludes was supposed to be “a day in the life of two schnooks who took way too many drugs.”

The sequence, in Loony Tunes slow motion, becomes a full-blown slapstick routine. Jordan’s phone is bugged by the F.B.I. so he goes to his country to use their phone, and then the decades-old Quaaludes kick in. No one understands anything he says. “Under those circumstances you think you’re saying what you’re supposed to be saying, but you’re not because the organs, the mouth is not working. You can’t get the signals,” Scorsese said.

His legs won’t carry him and he falls down the entrance stairs of his club and crawls towards his car. “Now he’s got to get in the car, and the car’s really over there,” Scorsese points in the opposite direction where Jordan crawls because his sense of direction is off. “He falls down, but the crawling was really interesting.”

The director forgot about the door and that the car was a Lamborghini, which opens upwards. “So what is he going to do? Try his legs?” They won’t hold him up Scorsese said. His foot? “I said it’s going to take hours with your foot but that’s how we did it, just like Jerry Lewis and Jacques Tati.”

DiCaprio did the scene in two takes.

He said a lot of the ideas came from Jordan, who told him what Quaaludes were like. “I had him show me by rolling around on the floor for me, and he was helpful with that.”

DiCaprio said he also did massive research and came across a YouTube video loop called “The Drunkest Man in the World.”

“The man is trying to get a beer but his body won’t cooperate. He’s rolling around the floor for hours, so that was a huge inspiration for me,” DiCaprio said. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_0Al6GOpVg.)

Reiner added, “I put it up with the best comedy scenes I’ve ever seen in a movie in my life, and what makes it good is that they took their time with it. They didn’t rush it, and it just gets funnier and funnier and funnier.”

“I was stunned at how physically trained you are,” Reiner told DiCaprio, “like a great physical comedian person.”